Happenings

Museums Pounce on Low Prices

Implicit in the many quotes about buying Contemporary art at a discount is the expectation that prices for art will resume their rise . . . eventually. Carol Vogel adds another sign of confidence: museums buying. She details MoMA’s purchase of a Carl Andre and an Arte Povera work, as well as Yale’s purchase of an early American miniature.

Cloudy Diamonds

The Geneva gem and Jewelry sales were mixed. Sotheby’s came through with 60% of their lots sold and just under $15 million. Christie’s had two sales with a lower sell-through of 50% but a higher total of $22.6 million. The red-hot diamond market has stalled suddenly. Here’s Bloomberg:

The Rapaport Diamond Trade Index dropped 9.4 percent in the five weeks through Nov. 18. “The diamond market is currently in a phase of transition and it will probably not be clear where it is headed until the end of the year,” David Bennett, Sotheby’s chairman for its European and Middle Eastern jewelry business, said in the statement.

The Curator Effect

Suzanne Weaver, the DMA’s Nancy and Tim Hanley associate curator of contemporary art since 1995, has been named curator of contemporary art at the Speed Museum of Art in Louisville, Ky. And William Rudolph, the Pauline Gill Sullivan associate curator of American art for the last four years, will become curator of American art at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts.

Murakami Funfact

Since last spring, Sotheby’s and Japanese art star Takashi Murakami have been negotiating and structuring a solo sale of his works, similar to the Damien Hirst blowout in September. Now, those plans have been canceled, Sotheby’s insiders say.